Luis Lara — an Atwater native and state law enforcement officer who is known for his civic engagement in the local community — has announced he will be running for the District 3 seat on the Merced County Board of Supervisors in the 2026 election cycle.
“My intention is to help fix things, move the county forward, and gain the coummunity’s trust in the process,” Lara told the Times during an interview this week. “I have witnessed everything that has gone on. And I want to provide change to the citizens of Merced County. If there’s been change [in recent years], it’s been moving very slow.”
The 49-year-old Lara will try to unseat incumbent Supervisor Daron McDaniel who is seeking a fourth term in office. McDaniel is the longest-serving supervisor in the current board makeup, and has not faced a challenger in more than a decade — ever since he was first elected in 2014 when he beat out Tony Dossetti, a former Merced police chief, in a competitive November runoff.
District 3 covers the city of Atwater, a portion of northwest Merced, Frankilin-Beachwood and the McSwain area.
Lara said his campaign will be focused on public safety (police, fire and ambulance services), economic development (particulary progress at Castle) and transparency in county government.
“Public safety personnel are underpaid in this area, and there are a lot of issues right now,” the candidate contends. “It’s a revolving door with them right now. You can see the costs of hiring someone from the application process all the way to that person graduating from the academy. Then you place them as a deputy, they get trained, and then the next thing you see is them going off to work for another agency nearby, for better pay. It’s a constant, revolving door. Yet we still need to ensure the Sheriff’s Department has the tools to keep our community safe.
“Meanwhile, there are issues concerning the health benefits for all our county employees. They are paying a lot of money for benefits, and it’s not even providing the coverage they need. So we need to look into that. There are a lot of questions. Why?”
Lara directs the same question toward county fire services. “Why are county fire stations closing or consolidating? Why are we not looking at strategic ways to keep them open and operating to best serve the population? It’s the same with our ambulance service. We all want high quality public safety in the community. We want things to get better, but I think they’re not getting any better.”
Right out of the gate, Lara has secured early endorsements from the Merced County Deputy Sheriff’s Association and the Sergeants Association. The latter group, in an Aug. 14 op-ed published in the Times, called out Supervisor McDaniel and others on the Board of Supervisors for being “regressive and detrimental” on the issue of increasing and maintaining appropriate staffing levels, employee benefits and rentention at the Sheriff’s Department.
As for economic development, Lara promises to help make the former Castle Air Force Base a priority for real and significant corporate investment that will translate to many, much-needed, high-paying jobs. He’s also a fan of preserving an aviation tradition and related industries at Castle Airport. Lara is a licensed pilot who went through training at the Sierra Academy of Aeronautics at Castle, along with his son. Now he questions why the Sierra Academy is reportedly struggling to keep a presence at the airport. He also wonders about the progress of a new rail district based at Castle three years after the county signed a much-lauded agreement with the national firm Patriot Rail.
“What are they actually doing?” Lara asked. “How many people have been employed? … Something needs to happen. … It’s been 30 years since the Air Force base closed. Why are we still in the same place?”
The candidate said he will seek a benchmark approach to reach attainable goals at Castle and throughout the county with regards to investment, infrastructure and economic development.
Lara added that he is committed to being responsive to community members, and will attend all the meetings of the local Municipal Advisory Councils and the Atwater City Council.
An Atwater native
Lara was born in Merced and grew up in Atwater along with two sisters and a brother. His grandparents were immigrants to this country, and his parents worked hard to make a living at the former Davis Cannery. He went to local schools and graduated from Atwater High in the Class of 1994. At the time, he was already attending classes at Merced College to get ahead on an eventual degree. He received his AA just a year later, and then transferred to study criminal justice at Stanislaus State, where he graduated in 1997.
At first he was planning to pursue a career with the FBI, but a job fair organized by the California Highway Patrol changed his mind. He applied with the state agency, and soon found himself going through the CHP Academy. His first post was in Redwood City in the Bay Area, and then in 2001, he transferred to the Merced CHP office, and bought a home in Atwater. From there, he worked for a decade as a field officer, until he was promoted as a field sergeant into the Los Banos CHP office. After a year, he took on a recruitment sergeant’s position out of Fresno that was responsible for the hiring of applicants in the Central Valley from Bakersfield to Modesto. In 2016, he came back home again as an adminstrative sergeant, a position he currently holds.
All in all, Lara is a 28-year veteran of the CHP. He has helped manage some high-profile accident scenes people might remember, including one that involved a tour bus crashing into a sign on Highway 99, splitting in two, and killing four people in 2017. That same year, he was also on the scene of a large tanker fire near a Highway 99 offramp in Atwater.
Lara says he plans to retire from the CHP in April of 2026 when he turns 50, and before the June primary election.
As for his own family life, Lara married his wife Vanessa, a Merced native, in 2004. Their first child, Evan, came in 2006; and youngest son Brandon was born in 2008. Evan is now studying electrical engineering at UC Santa Barbara, and Brandon is a junior at Atwater High. The family home is located in the McSwain area.
“My wife and I grew up being very active in the community,” Lara mentioned. “I think both of us have had the option of working somewhere else, but that’s not us. We love this community. … Through my work I have developed a passion for helping local residents, and doing things that will help make this area a better place to live.”
Lara said he became involved with the Merced County Fair after being invited to a lunch event. With encouragement, he later applied to the Governor’s Office for a board position, and the govenor granted the request in 2019. He was part of a Fair Board team that made it through the covid pandemic and a resurgeance of fair activiites, including some record-breaking Junior Livestock Auctions. He remains on the Fair Board, as well as the board for the Merced School Employees Federal Credit Union. And since 2019, Lara has been part of the CalFire Incident Management Team.
Previously, the candidate served on the McSwain School Board, the Merced College Foundation Board, and the Merced County Spring Fair Board — a post that was approved by Supervisor McDaniel.
Today, Lara is excited about the prospect of being elected into a county leadership post. He said he knows the new County CEO, Mark Henderickson, a fellow Atwater resident, and that he expects they would enjoy a great partnership.
The candidate understands the challenge of going up against an established incumbent, but he said he was “all in,” and very encouraged by the response he has been receiving among residents since he made an announcement on Facebook last week.
Lara said he would save the county money right away because he has state medical benefits, and he doesn’t need a county offering for that — not to mention a pay raise for supervisors when other county employees are experiencing hardships. He said he would actually like to see term limits applied to the board if it were possible.
The next step for Lara will be a campaign kickoff event he says is coming “in the near future,” along with fundraisers. He has a Facebook page already up, “Luis Lara For Merced County Supervisor.” And his email is: luislara4supervisor@yahoo.com.